Did you recently delete a user profile account, only to realize later that it had useful files/folders, or some other data? Well, this happens quite often when you as an admin, think of freeing up space by deleting existing user accounts on the computer.
If you are wondering how to recover the deleted user profile as it contains some useful information, you may rightly access it by trying out these workarounds –
How to restore deleted User Account in Windows 10
To recover an old or deleted user profile in Windows 10, you may try either of the following options –
1] Using the Registry Editor
The registry is the best way to get back a lost user account profile on Windows 10 PC. All you require is to follow the below guideline –
Step-1: First of all, you need to find out the Security Identifier. To do so, use these steps –
- Launch Command Prompt as an administrator.
- On the elevated console, execute the command –
whoami /user.
Step-2: Now that you have the SID of the running account on your computer, modify the registry to get back the deleted user profile.
- Right-click on the Windows icon and select Run.
- Type “
regedit” in the text field and press OK to enter the registry editor. - Hit Yes on the upcoming UAC prompt.
- Next, navigate to the path –
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList
- Here, you may find two matching results with or without the .bak extension.
Step-3: After locating the SID account on the registry, perform these steps to modify the existing User Profile –
- Delete the duplicate SID – the one which doesn’t have the .bak file format. To do so, right-click over this key and choose the delete option. In case any confirmation message appears, hit Yes.
- Subsequently, you must rename the SID backup. To do so, right-click again over the SID having .bak file extension, and select the Rename option. Next, remove the “.bak” from the name and press Enter.
Step-4: In the end, configure the folder path and its state. By doing so, you may easily recover the deleted user profile –
- Right-click over the folder that matches your current SID.
- Head over to the right pane, and double-click on ProfileImagePath.
- Inside the Value data field, put the correct path, and hit OK.
- Next, double-click on the State entry, and change its value data to “0”.
- Press Enter to save the latest changes, close the registry, and Restart Windows.
From the next logon, you should access the deleted user profile on your computer.
How to get the correct path of your user profile
In case you don’t know the right path of your user profile, use these steps –
- Press Win + R to invoke the Run dialog.
- Type “C:\users“, and press Enter.
- Following this will take you to the correct folder.
- Go to the address bar, select and copy the whole path.
- Now that you know the correct path, put this inside the Value data field.
2] Use Restore Point to recover deleted User Profile
If you had previously created a restore point of the computer before deleting any user account, you may use this backup to restore your deleted user account. Creating a restore point records all the important files/folders that exist on your device during its creation. So, it becomes quite easy to go back to the state wherein the deleted user profile exists. Let’s explore the necessary steps to recover deleted user account profile using this method –
- Press Win + R, type
rstrui, and hit OK. - System Restore will point to a recommended backup that you may go for. If its date of creation exceeds the date you deleted the profile, mark the radio button – “Choose a different restore point” instead.
- On the succeeding screen, select a backup, and press Next.
- Click over the Finish button to start restoring your PC to a state wherein the old user profile exists.
- Wait for the process to finish, and restart your computer.
From the next logon, you should be able to sign-in using the old User Account details.
Note: If you had accidentally deleted the only admin account on your computer, you must boot into Advanced recovery using bootable media. When you enter the Advanced Startup, follow the sections below to fix this problem.
Troubleshooting > System Restore
3] Use Third-party apps
If none of the above workarounds aid to recover the deleted user profile, you may take the help of third-party apps. There are numerous such apps that you can opt for like Stellar, EaseUs, etc.
I hope this tutorial was easy to follow, and you were able to get back the old or deleted user account profile on your device.
